US says Troika countries push to end S. Sudan conflict soon
May 4, 2015 (NAIROBI) – The United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, said his government and other Troika countries as well as the East African regional body (IGAD), had been pushing to finally end the war soon in South Sudan and further threatened action against the warring parties if they fail to stop the conflict this time.
The top US diplomat said it was time the international community acted, including to impose targeted sanctions against South Sudanese individuals responsible for the atrocities committed and the mismanagement of the wealth of the country and continued to wage war.
“And I believe that the community, the nations in the community – Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the IGAD as a whole – all of them need to come together and make certain that there’s going to be an impact here,” Kerry said.
“And that could mean sanctions against the individuals – not against the country, but against individuals who have hidden money away, hidden property away, who have literally stolen from the nation even as they’re letting the nation kill itself,” Kerry told Eye Radio on Monday.
The US secretary of state also called on the African Union (AU) to release and publish the report presented by the Commission of Inquiry on the human rights violations committed in the South Sudanese conflict.
He further said that the US government had allocated $5 million to develop a justice and accountability system to bring to book those responsible in South Sudan crimes.
“We believe that these terrible, atrocious things that are happening to people – the rapes, the killings, the disappearances, the level of violence – is really a violation of the laws of warfare. And we need to have accountability as this goes forward. So we will be, first of all, focused on that,” he revealed.
He said his country and other Troika nations (UK and Norway) and the UN will be pushing for a real decision in the next round of peace talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, between the warring parties.
“And the Troika is going to push very hard – the UN, the United States, Great Britain, the EU – all of us are going to push very hard for some real decision making in these next days,” he said.
Kerry said both president Salva Kiir and his former deputy, armed opposition leader Riek Machar, must sign a peace agreement and end the bloodshed or risk punishment by the international community.
He also announced a $45 million pledge to Kenya for its role in helping resolve conflicts in South Sudan and Somalia and dealing with over 600,000 refugees in the country.
The East African regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which Ethiopian premier, Hailemariam Desalegn chairs and Kenyan president Uhuru is its rapporteur, said it was developing a new expanded mediation mechanism.
The new IGAD-Plus mechanism would include five more African countries, Troika nations, European Union (EU), China and the United Nations (UN). No date is yet announced for the resumption of the peace talks.
The 16-month old war erupted in mid-December 2013 when political debates on reforms within the ruling Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) turned violent, further escalating into tribal conflict pitting Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, who were from the onset massacred in the capital, Juba, against Kiir’s Dinka community and their allies including foreign Ugandan forces.
The war has come to a stalemate as no warring party has achieved a military victory. Tens of thousands have died with millions either displaced or threatened by hunger.
(ST)